International grain and oilseed futures are generally back in the green this morning. US 11.5% hard red winter wheat lead the wheat market higher there. All three of the major US grades closed higher. White wheat out of the Pacific Northwest was generally unchanged.
The US drought monitor tends to indicate there is little to worry about at present for US spring sown crops unless you are in southern Montana or the Pacific Northwest. The PNW dryness comes at the start of wheat harvest, or in the very north of the production zone, late grain fill. This is of interest to the Australian producer as the PNW is where the bulk of the US white wheat comes from. It is exported into the Asian market, competing directly with Australian white wheat. Keep an eye on yield reports and harvest quality data out of the PNW over the next couple of weeks.

The hot dry weather in France continues to take its toll on spring sown crops. The French corn crop now rated just 44% good to excellent. The dry and heat in France has created the fastest decline of a French corn crop on record. The heat, bad enough alone, combined with weeks of below average rainfall in much of France. Yield estimates for late maturing winter crops like wheat, rapeseed and barley also continue to decline. This is probably one of the least reported cases of a fundamental change in crop condition that I’ve seen in a long time.

In Canada we see durum starting to flower across the earlier sown fields in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The condition of the crop is mixed but generally it is looking good apart from the very south where it’s still rated at 78% G/E. With Turkey producing a much larger crop in 2026 price increases will be very much dependent on how the Italian and French crop finish. We’ll know this very soon. Not only will quality and yield data be crucial this year, we will need to keep a close eye on demand into Italy, and to a lesser extent Turkey, they will need some blending quality. Demand from N.Africa will be lower.